The Royal Borough of Greenwich Tall Ships Festival hosted the largest Tall Ships event on the Thames in 25 years in early September. The majority of the ships took part in the Falmouth – Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Race, racing from Falmouth to the Needles on the western tip of the Isle of Wight, before cruising to the Thames.

The Festival was a huge success, with more than one million people attracted to the Greenwich waterfront – the longest of any London borough – to see the fleet. The climax of the five-day festival was the Parade of Sail on 9 September. An operation co-ordinated by the PLA harbour masters, working with pilotage, marine services and port control staff at the Thames Barrier saw the event go off without a hitch, drawing on much of what we learnt in running the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant in 2012.

The Tall Ships Festival gave PLA pilot Jacek and pilotage coordinator Kasia chance to be reunited with the Polish sailing training ship, and star of the Festival, Dar Mlodziezy (shown above).
Jacek had served on her in 1983, a year after the vessel came into service, travelling to Osaka, Japan, to take part in the Wolrd Sailing Ship Festival. Kasia spent time on Dar Mlodzierzy between 1998 and 2002 when she was a cadet in Maritime School in Gdynia, Poland.
Jacek piloted the ship to Gravesend,
          inbound, where Kasia boarded
                              and they travelled
                               on-board to her
                                mooring at
                                Enderby’s Wharf.